isla mujeres

isla mujeres is a pretty nice place.  i could definitely hang out here for a couple weeks, have some beers, work on my spanish.

the ferry from cancun is about 30 minutes and leaves you at the main dock on the north side of isla.  suddenly you are surrounded by bars, restaurants, and hundreds of people hawking the same things that they sell in every part of mexico, just with a different city name.  everyone rides golf carts or mopeds, with a few cars here and there.  

the water is that perfect blue color of the caribbean postcards, and wow is it hot.  

pam and i walked with our luggage about 5 blocks to hotel posada del mar, right across the street from the beach.  its a pretty decent place, wifi and air conditioning, those are the only must-haves lately for places to stay.  there's a pool with greenish cloudy water and a bar with a pool table.  there's a super annoying group of 'young adults' here but the air conditioner in the room is so loud that we can't hear anything else.  all good.

most people take the ferry here for a day visit so its really only crowded from 9am to sunset.  i went running this morning on the beach and it was deserted, just some guys out setting up the rental chairs and umbrellas and some women raking the garbage from the sand.  no stores were open, no one pestering me to buy things that i've seen every day for the past 7 weeks.  it was so nice.  by the time i was done swimming the first ferry was arriving, and by breakfast all the stalls were set up and the island was in full swing.  the main street gets crazy busy for several hours, then as the tourists get too sunburned and drunk it slowly subsides back to the relatively few people staying here.

the main part of the island is the north shore, about 7 streets of stores, restaurants, laundromats and hotels.  its very touristy but is quite charming as well.  i would love it more if i could walk 5 feet without someone trying to get me to go into their store or eat at their cafe.  in sayulita the most bold salespeople were roving the beach, here its the people standing in front of their stores.  please, ladies, pass inside to the air conditioning and look at my jewelry.  ladies, please look at my menu (as it is shoved into my face) and eat here.  you need a golf cart, please come this way.  book your whale shark trip with me, the best boat on the isla.  omg please stop already.  

but i was describing geography.  so north shore is where all the action is.  there's a thin strip of land going south, then a small point at the south shore with a lighthouse and some apparently unimpressive mayan ruins.  pam and i are going to investigate the south shore tomorrow, by way of golf cart.  i think the whole island is about 4 miles long.  if i had been running with any regularity i could run there and back.  

yesterday we went to swim with whale sharks.  i think this fits somewhere in my top 10 things i've ever done.  maybe.  there should be a list of things i've done versus things i've accomplished, so in a future post i'll figure that out.  but whatever, it was amazing.  we were picked up at our hotel by willy, a local guide/salesman/etc, along with a woman who has been coming here for years and her granddaughter.  this woman was pretty funny, she's about 65, smokes constantly, acts how she wants and doesn't care what anyone thinks, and knows everyone that you'd need to know here.  she was a great person to meet.  i've forgotten her name several times now.  

it was just the four of us on the boat, plus willy and 2 boat crew.  one crew has to be in the water with tourists at all times, and only 2 tourists per boat can swim with the sharks at a time.  we had to wear the awful orange life vests from the moment we got on the boat, and had to swim with them as well, which made it hard to get any good underwater pictures.  

we motored about an hour and a half northeast and could see about a dozen other boats converging in the same general area.  the first boat to spot sharks radios the coordinates.  the ride was a little bumpy but pam and i learned all the spanish snorkeling and aquatic life words we needed.  then suddenly in the middle of nowhere there are all these shark fins.  time to swim!  

i don't even know how to describe the day.  i was able to swim at the same speed as the sharks, even with my giant floaty vest, so i just kicked and watched these giant sea monsters swimming in circles, mouths opening and closing as they fed.  i spent by far the most time in the water, probably about an hour, taking pictures and videos and just being amazed.  i got too close a few times and got smacked with the fins, and even that was cool.  

i need to describe this better but a spanish version of napoleon dynamite is on and its very distracting.  

after we swam we came back to isla and snorkeled at a reef, beautiful but not too exciting, then we dropped anchor near a beach and drank beer and ate ceviche that the crew had made while we snorkeled.  yum.  they also had sandwiches with some sort of mystery meat (which i ate, too).  by this time willy was back to life, i didn't realize it until the way home but he was sleeping in the back of the boat, and had been barfing over the side all morning.  tequila.  i barely got out of the water so never noticed.  

otherwise, pam and i have been hanging at the beach and pool, reading, practicing spanish, finding the cheap mexican food (which you have to search for here), and pretty much having a chill few days.  another place on the 'i'd come back' list.

btw, happy national tequila day.